Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Microcirculation


We've learned how the oxygenated blood makes its way through the arteries, and how the last part of the trip before bringing blood to a part of the body is the arterioles.

After the arterioles, the blood goes into tiny small tubes called capillaries.
We learned about capillaries before, and how oxygen gets into capillaries at the blood air barrier by the lungs.

Capillaries are built to let blood out of them, to go to your tissues like your skin and muscles.
You can almost think of it like pouring water over a blanket. The blanket looks solid but if you pour water on it, the water will go through.

After the fresh oxygenated blood goes out from the capillaries into your body, your body uses up the oxygen in the blood, and the capillaries suck it back in to get sent back for more oxygen.

This used blood is called deoxygenated blood.

The whole process of the body dumping out the new blood and picking up the old blood is called microcirculation.

(from: wikipedia - microcirculation)


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